Recession-Hard/Soft Landing
After this morning’s jobless claims number, we have now seen enough deterioration in our preferred labor market indicators to increase portfolio duration from “at benchmark” to “above benchmark”.
Preliminary PMIs suggest that, with the exception of the Eurozone, growth was still resilient in DM economies in July. Composite PMIs expanded across the board, at a faster pace in the US and the UK, and from previously contractionary levels in Japan. …
We assign high odds that the US will tip into a recession by year-end or early 2025. Given it has been the largest driver of global demand in this cycle, a US recession will morph into a global downturn. The procyclical Eurozone economy is particularly…
The US economy has clearly cooled from its above-trend pace of growth in 2023. The consensus view among BCA Research’s strategists project that this deceleration will eventually culminate in a recession by year-end or early 2025. Our US Investment…
Total consumer credit rose by USD 11.4 billion in May (to USD 5,065 billion outstanding) from a slightly upwardly revised USD 6.5 billion increase in April, surpassing expectations of a smaller increase. Notably, revolving credit (which includes credit cards)…
The S&P 600 and Russell 2000 have outperformed the S&P 500 by close to 10% since July 9. Small caps typically outperform in the early stages of economic expansions when growth is accelerating, demand-driven inflation is rising and lending standards…
We calculate expected returns for several different US fixed income sectors with a focus on how municipal bonds stack up against the investment alternatives.
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) – a summary statistic of US economic data releases – decreased to 0.05 from 0.23, suggesting that the US economy cooled in June. Although the headline index surpassed expectations of a negative (below-average…
Export dynamics from small open economies are a good bellwether for global growth conditions. Taiwan export orders decelerated from 7.0% y/y to 3.1% in June, badly disappointing expectations of a double-digit growth rate and following two consecutive…
The yen rallied against most major currencies in July and has climbed close to 3.5% so far this month against the greenback. Resurfacing suspicion of central bank interventions to prop up the currency is one of the factors supporting this month’s strength.…